Bootscootin' Blahniks (28 page)

She marched through the foyer, setting her face to match the ferocious grimace of her Louisiana gator, and went straight for the guest bedrooms.

“You need to pay your driver,” she commanded as she pushed the door open, not bothering to knock first.

“Can’t you take care of that darling? I’m unpacking. It’d be a shame for my new Armani pantsuit to wrinkle anymore than it already has.” She continued unzipping bags without even looking at Roxy.

“Sure, I’ll take care of it.” Roxy grabbed her mother’s Louis off the guest bed and left the room.

She handed all five of the hundred dollar bills she found in her mother’s billfold to the driver. Feeling fairly certain even that wasn’t fair compensation for his toils. Although the crisp Franklins had him smiling for the first time since Roxy had opened the door and found him on the stoop with her mother.

Seeing him off, Roxy stepped out the door, breathing in the heavy morning air. Even in early summer, Tennessee humidity was better than having to go back inside and face the Empress of Entitlement.

Roxy searched the sidewalks on both sides of her home, hoping she’d find Jules and Audrey returning from their run. Seeing nothing but her neighbor’s bulldog marking his family’s mailbox, she went back inside and closed the door.

Figuring she could avoid her mother for at least another hour while she finished unpacking, Roxy stepped into her office.

Picking up the bright red stress ball on her desk, she squeezed then re-squeezed the tough rubber beanbag. They didn’t make the things big enough to manage her stress. She’d rather wing it across the room than squeeze the crap out of it, but she couldn’t afford to repair the dents in her dry-wall.

What could possibly have caused her mother to land on her doorstep? And what was she supposed to do with her? She didn’t have time to play tour director, arrange personal shopping days, or host cocktail parties. And she certainly didn’t have a housekeeper slash personal assistant to do those things for her.

Something was up in Manhattan, Roxy thought, as she picked up her sketchpad, reached for a colored pencil and drew shadow marks into her latest belt buckle design. She always worked well under pressure and felt an archaic urge to transfer her anxious energy onto her paper.

With each line of detail she added to the design, the same lines she’d later hammer into the silver buckles, Roxy felt a sliver of disillusionment thaw.

Choosing a deep blue, the color of the coldest depths of the arctic, she filled in the shapes of the stones she’d embed into the prototype piece. Alternating each stone sequence with silver metallic stars that shimmered like icebergs on the page, she finished the sketch with ease, never once reaching for the myriad of pulverized erasers cluttering her drawing table.

She rubbed her eyes, pushing out the sleepy haze starting to settle in. Because of the nightmare that had taken residence in her house, she was way too afraid to take a catnap. Removing a scrap piece of material from the top of her desk clock so she could read the numbers, she couldn’t believe it was already eight thirty. The tension she’d worked out in her sketchbook crept back into her body, feeding on her sleep deprivation. She tried to relax the kinks out of her neck then circled her shoulders forward and back.

She needed to be dressed and to the boutique by ten. She’d promised Kat they’d go over last month’s books. And for the first time since she’d opened Raeve, she was hopeful she might actually show a small profit. ‘Course anything in black was okay with her no matter how minute the number.

Thinking she must have been too focused on her designs to have heard Jules and Audrey return, she left her office and went upstairs to the kitchen. Hoping to meet up with them for a quick bite to eat and to warn them about their unwanted guest, she took two steps at a time.

Reaching the landing, she welcomed the smell of coffee.
Hell
. That was part of the reason she couldn’t stay awake. She had yet to have her first cup of caffeine. Instead, she’d been dealing with her mother’s arrival by subconsciously relying on escape tactics in the form of retreating to her office. Her psyche, smarter than she sometimes gave it credit for, knew better than to face Lily Vaughn without caffeine. Once she’d had a java fix, Roxy could sort of handle her mother.

Jules and Audrey were seated at the table in the breakfast nook, but not with the bottled water, juice and bananas of their normal post-run routine. Not today. If the sugar-overload cereal boxes, bottle of vodka, highball glasses, and cutting board piled with mint sprigs and lime wedges were a clue, they already knew about her mom’s impromptu arrival.

“I hope you’re fixing me one of those.” Roxy padded across the kitchen floor and plopped into a chair. Burying her head in her hands, she pressed her forehead against the bistro table, letting the cool marble soak into her aching temples.

“Coming right up,” Jules said, going to get another glass while Audrey poured Roxy a bowl of Lucky Charms. “I think we’re low on club soda though.”

“I don’t care. Just add more rum,” Roxy said then groaned as she reached for the gallon of milk in the center of the table. “What have I done to deserve my mother and mojitos before noon?”

“Well now. I’m just guessing here,” Jules said, setting the glass in front of her. “But I’d say it’s more a matter of what your dad hasn’t done that brings your mother to our door.”

“Huh? Wait till I get a sip of this first. Then run that by me again.” Roxy downed her mojito, shivering at the hard reality of early morning vodka.

“I think what Jules is getting at is that there must be trouble in the penthouse.” Audrey stirred her mojito with the plastic stick Jules had stuck in her glass.

“Like that’s anything new.” Roxy shook her head and speared a lime wedge with her stir stick. “But enough turmoil to bring her and her wardrobe ringing my doorbell? What could make her that desperate?”

“I’ll tell you what.”

Jules and Audrey jumped at hearing Lily’s voice. Roxy’s hand jerked back sending her stir stick and its impaled lime flying across the table. The cocktail garnishments ricocheted off Lily Vaughn’s new nose and onto the floor.

“Mom. You should have said something. We didn’t know you were there.” Roxy could feel her face go from the white of her mojito to Bloody Mary red, the heat turning her empty stomach into a rolling boil of chaos.

“Why should I have announced myself? Then you would have quit talking about me.” Her mother moved across the kitchen with the pomp and pride of Queen Elizabeth, her head so high one would think she had a nosebleed.

She confiscated the last empty chair at the table using it as her throne.

For the first time since she’d arrived, Roxy got a good look at her. For the first time in her life, Roxy saw a woman she didn’t recognize as her mother. But for more than the first time, Roxy just didn’t care.

The person across from her certainly didn’t have the life of privilege, no-worries attitude of the mother who had paid other women to raise her only child. Gone was the only-problem-I-have-is-how-to-score-an-invitation-to-that-event. In its place was a defeated shell of a socialite. The only strings holding her mother together had been sewn in by Manhattan’s best cosmetic surgeons.

Maybe she should care this time, Roxy thought. Just a little bit.

“Got another one of those?” Her mother pulled at the corners of her eyes as if to tuck back tears.

“I think we’re out of club soda,” Audrey said, looking at Jules for confirmation.

“She could probably handle the no club soda version,” Jules offered, then mixed Lily a drink.

“Thank you, darling.” Lily folded her hands on top of the table, her left hand covering her right.

Roxy damn near spit the last of her drink through her nose.

Where was her mother’s wedding ring? She never took it off.
Never
. No matter what treatment she indulged in at what spa, the ring stayed put. Perhaps wrapped in all sorts of paraphernalia to keep the anti-aging masks and peels from damaging it, but on her finger all the same.

“You just noticed it was gone?” Her mother raised and rotated her hand so all of them could pay homage to the six-carat, diamond and platinum ring that no longer decorated her finger.

“You’re not very observant, darlings.” She rubbed her empty ring finger with more maternal care than she’d ever shown Roxy.

“No offense, Mrs. V, but it’s kind a hard to distinguish amongst your bling-bling,” Jules said, rushing to Roxy’s defense.

“Terrific. Of all the private schools you three attended, you can’t speak properly. One of you has gone southern and another straight to the hood.” Roxy’s mother played with the zipper on her jogging suit, moving it up and down the track. “So what dialect have
you
chosen, Audrey?”

“I’m still deciding.” Audrey, never one for confrontation, begged off goading Lily further and concentrated on the marshmallow jewels in her cereal bowl.

“So why are you here, Mom?” One highball glass of liquid courage and Roxy was ready to charge into the ring. “And how long are you staying?”

“I’ve left your father, to answer your first question,” she said, her voice flat and without emotion, as if the news wasn’t in the least bit upsetting. But her hands betrayed her, moving non-stop, if not pulling on the zipper of her jacket then straightening cuffs that didn’t need straightened. “As far as how long I’m staying, that’s up to you.”

Roxy choked on the milk she was drinking from the bottom of her cereal bowl. “What do you mean that depends on me?”

“Well, after a lot of soul searching, I’ve decided to step outside my comfort zone and establish new roots.”

Her mother took a deep breath, filled with enough meditative drama Roxy expected her to move onto the floor and assume a yoga pose.

“Good for you, Mom. But what does that have to do with me?” Roxy grabbed another swizzle stick from the box on the table and stuck it in her mouth, chewing on it. If she cracked her laminates, she’d be really pissed. But she had to do something to keep from biting her mother’s head off.

“You seem so happy down here that I thought maybe I could be too.” Her mother shrugged, then lowered her eyes and held out her empty ring finger, staring at it as if she could will it to appear. “I don’t have anything left in New York.”

Oh no she wasn’t
. That was sooo not going to work. She was
not
going to make Roxy feel sorry for her. The woman had shown no compassion all the years they’d lived under the same roof.

How dare she expect what she couldn’t give.

Roxy looked at Jules and Audrey for help. But being the good friends they were, they were tidying up their place settings, preparing to flee the scene. Not that she blamed them. This was about to get rough.

“Mom, you don’t know whether I’m happy or not. You’ve never taken time to find out,” Roxy said, not able to hide the edge to her voice. “And you have plenty of friends in New York. You chose them over me for the last thirty-four years.”

The woman was crying. Dainty, perfect tears. But all the same, crying. And not a damn drop smeared her mascara. She must have paid a fortune for that advanced, hard-wearing formula.

Unprepared for what she was witnessing, Roxy stared at her mother in complete astonishment. The witch of yesteryear was losing it and expected Roxy to pick up the comfort tab.

“Oh, Roxy. I know I’ve been a horrible mother. But I thought by maintaining a stellar social standing in all the right circles, I’d please your father. Apparently, that didn’t work either.” She took a tissue out of her jacket pocket and blew her nose. “I didn’t have time to be a good mother so I left that up to your nannies.”

“So you’re blaming
Dad
for everything?”

The woman was unbelievable. Her dad was no saint, and like her mother, didn’t care about anyone but himself, but he didn’t deserve all the blame for Roxy’s crappy childhood. They were both avid participants in her adolescent hell.

“I’m not blaming your father entirely, darling. I know I’ve contributed a bit.” She dabbed the tissue underneath her eyes.

Incredible
. Still not a smudge of black liner or mascara stained the tissue.

“Our family has been a sham for years, Mom. Everybody knew that.” Roxy, more disgusted the longer she listened, could no longer hide behind the thirty plus years of secrets she’d shoved under her parent’s imported entryway rug.

“What do you mean ‘everybody’? Your father and I worked very hard to put our best face forward.” Her mother pressed imaginary wrinkles out of her velour pants.

“Well, not hard enough. There was no love ever shown between you two. People talked about that. Never a knowing glance, an unnecessary touch, a shared laugh. You two were stone cold perfect.”

Roxy shivered at the memories of the three of them in the car while their driver delivered them to an event. The silence still deafening to her now like it was then. She’d wanted to scream. Maybe she should have.

“And God knows you never showed affection towards me unless the right people were watching.” Roxy fired the shot without a bit of regret.

“What would you know about love and affection at your age?” Her mother’s tone turned to ice, sharp as the cubes in her drink, unable to melt in the harsh truth of her orchestrated reality.

“I know a lot more than you do.” Roxy got up from the table and shoved-in her chair, not giving a damn that the wrought iron legs scraping against the floor left a black mark.

The mar on her kitchen tiles didn’t come close to the darkness her mother had stirred inside her.

“If you’ll excuse me. I have a business to run. And then another one after that.” Roxy turned for the stairs but paused and faced her mother. “Don’t wait up.”

“I never have, darling. That’s how I’ve failed you.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, big rivers now. The fat drops streamed down her cheeks, then splashed off her jacket.

Roxy couldn’t speak, too afraid of what else she’d say. She’d been silenced by the black smudges of her mother’s eyeliner and the tan cake of her foundation as they mixed into Jackson Pollack-like swirls on her tissue.